Chapter 77: Battle of the Waterway

"One more chance."​

The command to kill is on the tip of your tongue.

Yech looks to you with so much devotion that it takes you aback. "Wait just a minute. I want to make a fucking entrance."

Your grimace is intense— your resolution complete— as you keep your back turned to the corridor leading out of the ruins. Looking to the waterway below, you take up your mace and shield. The defense of a demon— the protection of your friend— is shouldered in your main hand, alongside your cane. You'll need him to stand. In the arm opposite, you take hold of the promise of violence. The simplistic, sharp weapon catches on the low, golden light below.

You are not afraid.

Music

"Surprise me, Yech."

The sorcerer beams at you. His grin is unhinged. Exposed bone drips with battle and sin. "It would be my pleasure."

With a single motion, he swings his bones down. Both his hands are extended to the soil and moss.

They part before him. This is his ruin.

From the reopened expanse, you can clearly see the rush of water below. Crimson dances through the tide, rushing out towards the domain of a monster you have fought before. You hear her lethal march.

Before you lies more than even hundreds of legs. The gray foam is littered with corpses, trampled underfoot by countless demons. Spiked like cacti, adorned with horns, tails barbed and lethal— winged beasts, even— and so many insect-like creatures abound that it makes your own skin crawl.

There's a scream and a roar, as the monsters below look to their master above. To Yech— and to you, his ally.

Their master yells in return, "I'm giving you all one more chance! Stay your fucking hands!"

Several arrows streak up towards you.

"BEHIND ME—" You throw yourself forward, getting into position instantly. Before Yech and your dog, you lean hard into the assault. The impact of each strike resonates through your battered frame— but your allies lean harder against you, keeping you on your feet.

Yech takes hold of your shoulder. He motions for you to grab onto Ray. You comply immediately, commanding your mastiff to stay. As soon as you all are together, he calls out once more. "Fine! Fine, you ungrateful shits. We'll do it your way!"

Yech makes such an obscene gesture to the demons below that there's another rally and cry for your blood.

Insanity is written all over his face. The gesture spins into an incantation.

"LET'S PARTY!"

In a burst of confetti, an explosion of light and a rush of sin, the floor gives out from below you both. The wind is taken from your lungs. The plunge so steep that you can only pray to not fall to your death.

There's a crash, an explosion, a burst of celebration, and growth as a rush of vines bursts out from the soil to greet you. You're saved from the fall, ensnared in the works of a demon— and thrust out into the fray.

There's so much smoke and light that you can't see anything but Yech's works for a moment.

The vines part, releasing you into a rush of colored paper.

The smoke separates for an instant, as three imps cut through the cover, and rush to meet you.

Before they can begin to swing their weapons, they're ripped limb from limb and skewered by the vines. Ruptured in celebration.

You're showered in viscera and color— reminded of stained glass— as their screams are silenced in an instant.

The screams of dozens of demons echoes off the colossal waterway's walls in all directions. Through the smoke, they're torn without hesitation by their master.

The rush of water runs with a rainbow of destruction.

There are so many more screams in the distance. The rush of hundreds of feet are headed straight for you.

Ray is at your side, having not left it for an instant. His fur is on end, teeth exposed as he looks to you for permission.

You tighten your grasp on your mace, your cane, your intent to unleash the might of the Gods. To aid your ally. To stop the uprising against a new archdemon.

Your promise.

Your mission.

You close your eyes, allowing night to cover your vision. The sounds of battle echo around you, but there is nothing over your form but the desire for retribution. To do unto others what they so rightfully deserve.

Your passion.

Your mission.

"Witness Us."

The dog at your side lowers his ears, whining and backing steadily away from your form as your voice drops. The demons breaking through the smoke before you also lower their gaze and their attack— instantly recognizing what you are about to unleash.

You do not see them. You see the night. You see judgement.

You see Vengeance.

Music

From your lips flows bile black as the night, and darker than anything these demons have done unto another. You twist your hands, dropping your cane, shield, and mace with a clatter. The sound is eclipsed by your mutterings. You spin the liquid, allowing it to flow freely through the air.

The smoke parts, and an archdemon rallies a number of demons around him. You do not see, as the darkness is absolute. They are undeserving of Your gifts. They are together, united in arms against overwhelming odds. They are Your ally.

You open your eyes— black as night—and look upon the demons before you.

The smoke is all but gone, as an archdemon screams to his men around him. "I gave you every chance, every choice, and you've chosen to defy me?! You've chosen to fight, to kill, to escape?! This is our gift! ENJOY HIS BLESSING! This is OUR CATALYST!"

You do not feel the Catalyst. Not yet.

As you open your palms, you reciprocate the demon's works. Their treachery. Their sin. Bile floods from your mouth, emptying you completely. It surges along the peaks of the ruins, the highest reaches of the murals, the decay, and pauses.

Your judgement. Your verdict. Acid rains down upon the demons before you. There's screams. There's screams, as demons are sentenced to carry out Your will and execution.

The surge of crimson and the gray foam is kicked up as dozens of demons silently turn on themselves. Horns are ripped clean off, wings are severed, and scales are torn asunder as they lay waste to one another without Mercy.

A great number of them— unfit for so much as death at the hands of another— mutter to themselves with eyes black as night. They are deemed worthy of the only cure.

Able to see with absolute conviction, you stand and watch as no more than twenty demons lay themselves before you, and peel off their own skin. There is no muscle underneath. No skin. No flesh. No bone. The demons undoing themselves at your hands are filled with sin.

They're reeking, seeping into the waterway. They are undone.

There is a void.

There is something you know, and have felt many times before.

There's a rip and tear somewhere in the back of your mind as the chaos unfolds. The pounding of hundreds of feet persists at your back with the promise of retribution.

Your vessel becomes whole.

The cracks and millions of tears— from prayer and from the Gods— they mend for an instant.

You feel complete.

You are pooling. Pouring.

Caught so deeply in Yourself.

Your might.

Your will.

Your calling.

​

Your Catalyst.

There's a scream. You're pulled back in another instant, retching and screaming. You drop to your knees on the field of battle.

There's a nightmare— a cry— as you lose control. Vengeance is still with you. He is not done with Your vessel.

Ray is by your side, desperately wanting to reassure you, but terrified of the black in your eyes. The bile pouring freely from your lips. The unending muttering of a God.

Before you stretches several dozen demons. They're fighting one another to the death under Your control.

From around the corner of the waterway— the labyrinth, flooded by a demon wracked with a lust to survive— comes a monster. Over the cries of your ally, the archdemon, his warnings, his praise, his absolute disbelief, the ally rushing to your side across the field...

You hear her.

You know what you must do.

You gaze upon His works.

Demons despair.

Music

You know them. You recognize their sin. You feel it: Men and women who fell so hard and fast to the Catalyst that they were unfit for anything but to serve. These imps— these cowards, liars, manipulators, traitors who ravaged with emotion in life— now suffer in death. They have killed. They have betrayed.

They are traitors, unfit for anything but a singular cure.

They recognize your judgement.

You give them Vengeance.

The battle halts for a moment, as the demons before you in unison bring their weapons, their claws, and their teeth to their own bodies.

They systematically kill themselves.

You have felt this before. You have felt restraint in the darkness.

The darkness. A cell. Judgement after invoking the God of Retribution as a child on the deserving.

The Church of Mercy. The voice of two men who wished to take the title you ultimately were given.

'Fathers' of the Church. Your guardians. Your captors.

Your punishment.

Again.

Your Mercy.

Again.

It was not Mercy.

Again.

Your hand was raised against the deserving.

Again.

You are a weapon.

Again.

You are a preacher.

Again.

You are a man of the Gods.

Again.

You have felt it before.

Again.

You have touched the Catalyst so many times.

Again.

So many times that an archdemon reveres you.

Again.

There was restraint in the darkness.

Again.

You know Mercy.

Again.

They know Vengeance.

Again.

You came to know Them all, eventually.

Again.

There's a million little cracks through which all the Gods can work.

Again.

Not the blood, nor the bile, not the descent into yourself.

Again.

Not even into the will to die.

Again.

This isn't even half of the suffering. This is not half of the sin. Not half of the misery or the connection to a God that you scarcely understand. Not the restraint, the induction of prayer, the suffering, or the years of training in the dark.

Not your love, your devotion, your obsession to know.

Not a cure, nor a hope.

There's a wholeness in every last crack mended throughout your very soul.

Comfort.

The promise of relief.

You've felt it thirty two times.

The Catalyst.​

You're screaming.

You're being held and grasped onto by an archdemon, who's shaking you, and grabbing onto you so tightly you can scarcely breathe. Yech is holding onto you as an army approaches, screaming to you at the top of his lungs, "RICHARD! SNAP OUT OF IT! I FUCKING NEED YOU— YOU'RE NOT A DEMON, YOU'RE A FUCKING— G—" There's a spill and a struggle. Wine flows freely from the demon's eyes. He can't say what he wants to, but you understand as you lean against him. Your screams subside. Bile spills over his war-torn shoulders. "COME BACK! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!! COME ON— COME ON, RICHARD—"

Behind you, there is a force. A stampede that has been waiting for your arrival. For your weakness. For your alliance.

For your death.

A demon charges out from the waterway and immediately fills it with her monstrous breadth. There is a head, barbed and flanked by over two-hundred legs, and surrounded by so many teeth that you know to approach is folly. It charges towards you as you are on your knees, muttering to a God with bile flowing freely from your lips.

Yech is pulling you to your feet as you both stagger, leaving your mace and shield behind.

The tail of the centipede demon— Offala— is a commander. An intelligent combatant. A woman unfettered by any regalia or indication of her title. She has risen in the ranks of the ruins. She has healed, and she is accompanied by her demons. She is screaming in a voice uncannily resembling a normal woman's to countless allies behind her.

It's glaringly obvious to you now that the imps were meant to wear you down and distract you. There is an army of minor, lesser, greater and major demons alongside her. An assortment of leather, chains, and of barbed horns. Guards of Ostedholm, freed prisoners from the Catacombs, refugees from Nehliht's domain, the last of Mondost's imps— and all throughout the water are leeches. They are luminescent, course through the waterway, and are heading straight towards you and your allies.

Ray is growling. His fur is on end, looking to his master for protection.

Yech is screaming at you, though you are too enraptured with a God to understand the meaning of his words.

There's a tremor, a flicker, a spark.

A surge.

Lust.

Desire for power.

Your need.

The pull.

Storm.

You're still screaming— clutching onto yourself— your body ravaged with abuse. Your soul is in tatters as the God of Vengeance works through you with eyes of black. They gaze upon an army of death surging through the waterway straight towards you.

Yech pulls you, staggering, away from certain destruction, but you want to stay. You want to fight. You want to serve.

Your hands wrap around the Relic around your neck. The proof of your devotion. The hallmark of your insanity. A reminder of restraint, of compassion, of your devotion and love.

You gave all of your restraint through it to a demon. You haven't been the same, ever since.

You don't want to die. You want to live, to serve. To uphold your promises. To be better.

You try to still yourself— struggling— prayer falling from your lips with the bile. You pour the God of Retribution into the vessel. The blood, the black, the pull of justice, the obsession, the torment and the Catalyst spills from you as He cloys at the edges of your mind.

You rip them apart screaming, doing everything you possibly can to remove the divinity from your unwilling body. You won't let it happen again. Not so soon. Not like this.

The Relic courses with ebony. With the promise of Vengeance. The bile stops. Your mutterings fade fast.

The Relic in your hands eclipses the darkness and takes you completely. There's a radiance so blinding that it nearly knocks you off your feet. You stagger, stumbling backwards, as

There's relief.

Yech is pulling you, desperately, begging you to run.

You remember yourself. You've sworn so many times to be better. You've said time and time again that you want to live. You want to show your compassion, to uphold the tenets that have guided you all your life. No matter how much you've suffered, you want to endure. You want to see the sun again. You don't want this to be the end.

Not now. Not when you still have a mission.

Relic in hand— the yellowing-gold and heat searing your palms— you turn with the archdemon. You turn with your dog. Your screams have completely subsided.

They're both looking to you with fear and so much relief.

You find relief from your pain. You flee for your life.

The pain rapidly begins to subside, but your heart is pounding. Your pulse surges. Your breath catches in your throat while your feet pound against the water, the gray foam, and the bodies floating past. You have to jump, turn, twist, and careen down another turn. You're rapidly soaked to the bone. Days of soot, smoke, and blood come off of your robes, hair and skin. Following Yech's direction as you pull as hard away as you can from the army at your back, Ray's right alongside you panting hard. Your boy keeps your pace without complaint, but there is fear soaking him.

Behind you, a storm of arrows, javelins, daggers and sin surges forward.

Yech tears himself away from you the moment he understands that you can stand on your own. With a sweep of his arms, he pulls forth a wall of vines from the ground behind you. Behind and around it, he's dropping holes in the waterway— giving back pitfalls, traps, spears and the promise of death to anyone around you.

The barrier lasts for only an instant. The army crashes through it. Countless demons fearlessly leap over his traps as so many more careen into the pits and spears. Some are climbing back up out of the holes, taking the traps and using them as weapons in hand.

The sorcerer frantically throws himself behind you, producing a new shield made of rock and growth in an instant to bring up behind you both. He's screaming for you to turn, to careen down another corridor. A rain of arrows and spears and of death are pelting into him. He shields you— as you suspect he has for days— screaming, "LEFT— NO, MY LEFT— THIS WAY! COME ON! SHE'S GOT NEARLY 200 LEGS, RICHARD! THIS ISN'T GOING TO FUCKING WORK—"